Along an assembly line, various types of articles, such as, diapers and other absorbent articles, may be assembled by adding components to and/or otherwise modifying an advancing, continuous web of material. In some processes, advancing webs of material are combined with other advancing webs of material. In other processes, individual components created from advancing webs of material are combined with advancing webs of material, which in turn, are then combined with other advancing webs of material. In some cases, individual components created from advancing webs are combined with other individual components created from other advancing webs. Webs of material and component parts used to manufacture diapers may include: backsheets, topsheets, leg cuffs, waistbands, absorbent core components, front and/or back ears, fastening components, and various types of elastic webs and components such as leg elastics, barrier leg cuff elastics, stretch side panels, and waist elastics. Once the desired component parts are assembled, the advancing webs and component parts are subjected to a final knife cut to separate the webs into discrete diapers or other absorbent articles.
In some instances, contraction around the waist of a wearer may improve the actual and/or perceived fit of the absorbent article. In some processes, waistbands are bonded to absorbent articles to improve the perceived fit of the absorbent article. Some absorbent articles may have a waistband in a front waist region and a waistband in a back waist region. The waistbands may include an elastic material bonded to one or more layers of nonwoven substrate. In some processes, the elastic material for the front and back waistbands may be stretched to the same elongation. As a result, the front and back waistbands may have the same contraction.
In some instances, it may be desirable to provide a back waistband having more contraction than the front waistband in order to improve the actual and/or perceived fit of the absorbent article on the wearer. However, forming and attaching multiple waistbands having different amounts of contraction may add cost and complexity to the assembly process. Therefore, it would be beneficial to provide a method and apparatus for making a single layered elastic substrate that may be cut into two waistbands having different amounts of contraction.